White House budget director Mick Mulvaney with a copy of President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 federal budget that makes a government shutdown more likely and reduces the prospects for ta x reform. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The Trump 2018 budget clearly is designed to appeal to no one but the Trump base. Not only does it make no effort to broaden interest in and support for the president's program, but the budget's extremely harsh spending cuts are almost certain to make opposition from both Democrats and moderate Republicans much, much easier.

This enhanced, enthusiastic and self-assured Democratic and Republican resistance to the Trump budget will greatly complicate congressional efforts to pass a fiscal 2018 budget resolution that were problematic even before the president submitted his plan.

Yes, the Trump budget will appeal to the House Freedom Caucus. Indeed, rather than having the work done in house, the White House seems to have outsourced its budget to the HFC and it's budget philosophy.

But the HFC-preferred spending proposals that on the surface so appeal to the Trump base (let's see how these voters feel when they realize how many of these cuts will affect them personally) will be eagerly opposed en masse by House Democrats. That will once again put GOP moderates -- who after repeal and replace, the Comey firing and the president's dwindling approval numbers are increasingly nervous about their reelection -- in the position to determine whether the House can pass a budget resolution.

But if the Trump budget is any indication, it's not clear that the White House or HFC will be willing to deal to comply with what the moderates will want.

Even if the House did manage to adopt a budget resolution with the extreme proposals in the Trump budget, that is almost certain to be opposed by enough Senate Republicans and all Senate Democrats to make passage in that house impossible. The Senate leadership then would have to choose between no budget resolution this year or developing a more restrained budget that its members could support.

No budget resolution would be a huge problem because it would prevent the use of the no filibuster reconciliation rules for tax reform (Reconciliation can only happen if a Congress adopts a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions). That may make a much more moderate budget resolution with far fewer (as in almost none) spending cuts the only way to move tax reform forward.

But that type of budget resolution would be a total repudiation of the Trump 2018 budget and yet another huge defeat for the White House. Although he won't be able to veto the budget resolution to stop the legislative rout, Trump could retaliate by vetoing any fiscal 2018 appropriations that reflect Congress's rejection of his spending priorities. Given that there's not likely to be enough votes to override those vetoes, one, several or all federal agencies and departments could be forced to shut down this fall.

This situation would have been completely different had Trump chosen to govern rather than campaign and submitted a 2018 budget that reflected political realities instead of political arrogance. Had that happened, the budget would have been hailed as the start of a cooperative effort between the White House and Congress that showed Trump as a political and legislative force.

I have been involved with the federal budget and congressional budget process throughout my entire career. In addition to being one of the few people who has served on the staffs of the House and Senate Budget Committees, I'm the author of The Guide to the Federal Budget, wh...